Flexibility, precision and ease of operation are already well on their way from exception to rule in packaging equipment of the calibre KHS offers. So the company has upgraded the criteria
Its new Innopouch K-400 pouching machine for the food and non-food industries is also designed to provide excellent hygienic safety.
The Innopouch K-400 can fill pouches with various dry products from chunky goods like herbal candies and dry food for animals to finely ground powders, such as baking powder or ground coffee. The standard version of the machine has four filling stations connected in series, which can be added to as required. The dosing systems are always selected according to the product to be filled, with both volumetric systems, such as auger fillers, table feeders and sliding gate fillers, and gravimetric systems like multihead weighers possible.
Special attention was paid to the hygienic aspects of the Innopouch K-400 during its design development. Thanks to the open design, there are no mechanical components under the pouch grippers that have to be extensively cleaned. In the machine housing spacers are used in place of the usual rubber seals. The film dispenser is also fully enclosed. One possible option is to separate the pouch forming and filling areas by a pane. The frame of the Innopouch K-400 is made entirely of stainless steel, making the machine quick and easy to clean.
Important too, is the fact that in the filler area the pouch is held in place by one pouch gripper on either side of it. The pouches are therefore conveyed by just one pair of grippers until they exit the machine; there are no transfers. Top positioning and filling accuracies are also ensured by having the linear servo drive technology incorporated into the machine. Each pouch gripper consists of a linear motor and can thus be positioned very accurately at the press of a button.
The Innopouch K-400 is available as an FS (fill and seal) or an FFS (form, fill and seal) machine. The FS machine is supplied with prefabricated pouches from a pouch magazine; the FFS machine, on the other hand, both makes and fills the pouches. As the FS version is modular, it can be later expanded at any time to include a pouch forming unit.
The system makes or forms stand-up, flat and bottom gusset pouches from film laminate. It can run in both simplex (one pouch per machine cycle) and duplex (two pouches per machine cycle) operation.